Property Description
Market Mews is a cobbled through road between Hertford Street and Pitt’s Head Mews (another original/ surviving Mews) in Westminster. There are 16 properties in the Mews, used for residential and commercial purposes.
Between October 1940 and June 1941, a high explosive bomb is recorded falling onto Stanhope Row, the road that turns into Pitt’s Head Mews where Market Mews joins. The area was noted as being fairly comfortable with good, ordinary household earnings when the London Poverty Maps were first published.
Market Mews is part of Westminster City Council’s Mayfair Conservation Area; first designated in 1969, it derives its name from a fair held in the month of May in fields around the site of today’s Shepherd Market. The area is dominated by fashionable town-houses (and their mews) reflecting the history of English domestic architecture from the early 18th to the early 20th century.
The Mews has two and three storey, plain and painted brickwork buildings with a variety of mansard and parapet roof styles. The buildings are surrounded by a cobbled road surface and partial-raised pavements. The garages present remain intact.
Everchanging Nature
The original purpose of the Mews was to provide stable/ coach house accommodation to the main houses on the surrounding streets. Nowadays, the function of the properties is mainly residential although some commercial activity still remains.
A few planning applications have been made before and since 2003 for alterations to properties; mainly roof extensions and first floor extensions for additional residential accommodation. Conservation Area controls now apply to new development in the Mews.